April 2010 , Page 5

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Meet Marcel Johnson

I met Marcel Johnson at a Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce meeting. A tall, sharply dressed Black man with a deep and impressive voice, his calm and thoughtful manner is striking. Marcel is the Vice President of Economic Development at The Chamber. His job is to promote San Antonio to new businesses, and he is doing a great job. While jobs are shrinking in the rest of the country, San Antonio continues to gain companies and jobs. Marcel’s excellent people skills allow him to seamlessly interact and coordinate with the other divisions of The Chamber. So he benefits our city’s military, congressional, state legislative, and numerous other goals. He is also an armed robber.

As I make my way to Washington, D.C., to testify before the U.S. Sentencing Commission, I am hopeful that Marcel’s story and others like his make an important point. Locking up people with draconian “one size fits all” sentences has earned the United States a population of bitter, disenfranchised, and ill-equippe

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